The Proletarian Revolution in Russia/Part 6/Chapter 2
II.
WHAT IS A PEACE PROGRAM?
(Trotzky.)
What is a peace program? From the viewpoint of the ruling classes or of the parties subservient to them, it is the totality of the demands, the ultimate realization of which must be ensured by the power of militarism. Hence, for the realization of Milyukov's "peace-program" Constantinople must be conquered by force of arms. Vandervelde's "peace-program" requires the expulsion of the Germans from Belgium as an antecedent condition. Bethmann-Holweg's plans were founded on the geographical war-map. From this standpoint the peace clauses reflect but the advantages achieved by force of arms. In other words, the peace program is the war program.
Such is the case prior to the intervention of the third power, the Socialist International. For the revolutionary proletariat, the peace program does not mean the demands which national militarism must fulfill, but those demands which the international proletariat intends to enforce by dint of its revolutionary fight against militarism in all countries. The more the international revolutionary movement expands, the less will the peace questions depend on the purely military position of the antagonists, and the more will the danger disappear lest the conditions of peace be understood by the masses as war-aims.
This is rendered most clear to us by the question of the fate of small nations and weak states.
The war began with a devastating invasion of Belgium and Luxemburg by the German armies. In the echo created by the violation of the small country, besides the false and egotistic anger of the ruling classes of the enemy, there reverberated also the genuine indignation of the common masses whose sympathy was attracted by the fate of the small country, crushed only because it happened to lie between two warring giants. At that first stage of the war the fate of Belgium attracted attention and sympathy, owing to its extraordinarily tragic nature. But thirty-four months of warfare proved that the Belgium episode constituted only the first step towards the solution of the fundamental problem of the imperialistic war, namely, the suppression of the weak by the strong.
Capitalism in its international relations pursued the same methods applied by it in "regulating" the internal economic life of the nations. Competition is the means of systematically annihilating the small and medium-sized enterprises, and of achieving the supremacy of Great Capital. World competition of the capitalistic forces means the systematic subjection of the small, medium-sized and backward nations by the great and the greatest capitalistic powers. The more developed the technique of Capital, the greater the role played by high finance, and the higher the demands of militarism, all the more grows the dependency of the small States on the Great Powers. This process, forming as it does an indispensable element of imperialistic mechanics, flourishes undisturbed also in times of peace by means of state loans, railway and other concessions, military-diplomatic agreements, etc. The war uncovered and accelerated this process, inasmuch as it introduced the factor of open violence. The war destroys the last shreds of the "independence" of small states, quite regardless of the military outcome of the conflict between the two enemy camps.
Belgium still groans under the pressure of German militarism. This, however, is but the visible and dramatic expression of the collapse of her independence. The "deliverence" of Belgium does not at all constitute the fundamental aim of the Allied Governments. Both in the further progress of the war and after its conclusion, Belgium will become but a pawn in the great game of the capitalist giants. Failing the interference of the third power, "Revolution," Belgium may as a result of the war either remain in German bondage, or fall under the yoke of Great Britain, or be divided between the powerful robbers of the two coalitions. Imperialistic supremacy decrees that the weak be subjugated.
The same applies to Serbia, whose national energy served as a weight in the imperialistic world scales whose fluctuations to one side or the other are least of all influenced by the independent interests of the Serbian people.
The Central Powers drew the Turks and Bulgarians into the whirlpool of the war. Whether both these countries will remain as the south-eastern organ of the Austro-German imperialistic bloc ("Central Europe"), or will serve as small change when the balance sheet is drawn up, the fact remains that the war is writing the last chapter of the history of their independence.
Before the Russian Revolution, the independence of Persia was most obviously liquidated as a direct result of the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907.
Roumania and Greece furnish us with a sufficiently clear example of how limited a "freedom of choice" is given to small states by the struggle of the imperialistic trust companies. Roumania preferred a mere gesture to an apparently free choice, when she sacrificed her neutrality. Greece tried by means of passive opposition to "remain at home." Just as if to show most tangibly the futility of the whole neutralist struggle for self-preservation, the whole European war, represented by the armies of Bulgaria, Turkey, France, England, Russia and Italy, shifted on to Greek territory. Freedom of choice is at best reflected in the form of self-suppression. In the end, both Roumania and Greece will share the same fate: They will be the stakes in the hands of the great gamblers.
At the other end of Europe, little Portugal deemed it necessary to enter the war on the side of the Allies. Such a decision might remain inexplicable, if, in the question of participation in the muddle, Portugal, which is under English protection, had had greater freedom than the Government of Tver or Ireland.
The capitalistic captains of Holland and of the three Scandinavian countries, are accumulating mountains of gold, thanks to the war. However, these four neutral states of North Western Europe are the more aware of the illusory character of their "sovereignity," which, even if it survives the war, will nevertheless be subject to the settlement of the bills advanced by the peace conditions of the great powers.
"Independent" Poland will be able, in the midst of imperialistic Europe, to keep a semblance of independence, provided she submits to a slavish financial and military dependence on one of the great groups of the ruling powers.
The extent of the independence of Switzerland clearly appeared in the compulsory and restrictive measures adopted regulating her imports and exports. The representatives of this small federative republic, who, cap in hand, go begging at the entrances of the two warring camps, can well understand the limited measure of independence and neutrality possible for a nation which cannot command some millions of bayonets.
If the war becomes an indeterminate equation in consequence of the ever-increasing number of combatants and of fronts, thus rendering it impossible for the different governments to formulate the so-called "war aims," then the small states will have the at all events doubtful advantage that their historical fate may be reckoned as pre-determined. No matter which side proves victorious, and however far-reaching the influence of such a victory may be, the fact remains that there can no longer be a return to independence for the small States. Whether Germany or England wins,—in either case the question to be determined is who will be the direct master over the small nations. Only charlatans or hopeless fools can believe that the freedom of the small nations can be secured by the victory of one side or the other.
A like result would follow the third solution of the war, viz., its ending in a draw. The absence of pronounced preponderance of one of the combatants over the other will only set off all the more clearly both the dominance of the strong over the weak within either one of the camps, and the preponderance of both over the "neutral" victims of Imperialism. The issue of the war without conquerors or conquered is no guarantee for anybody: All small and weak states will none the less be conquered, and the same applies to those who bled to death on the battlefield as to those who tried to escape that fate by neutrality.
The independence of the Belgians, Serbians, Poles, Armenians and others, is regarded by us not as part of the Allies' War Program (as treated by Guesde, Plekhanov, Vandervelde, Henderson and others), but belongs to the program of the fight of the International Proletariat against Imperialism.